Every year I travel to China to work with our factory partners on new and existing products. I enjoy experimenting with new rough material to see how it translates into beads or pendants at the production level. Often, amazing looking rough will not work in a small format like beads while other materials will surprise you when you cut through it to expose colors and patterns that were not before apparent. Working directly in the factory allows us to bring to fruition the ideas we dreamed up in our office.

Red Creek Jasper

In the last few years finding new materials has become more challenging as quite a few changes are taking place in China. Three of the largest stone bead factories have closed their doors and stopped production due to escalating costs. While, many of the smaller cutters are shifting their product focus to the rapidly growing Chinese market. Both of these factors are changing how we are handling our production and working with our cutters. This year Dakota Stones will be introducing a lot of specialty products and stone types that are exclusive to us and only available in limited runs. We are working directly with individual artists and cutters to design and manufacture specialty strands right on site. Look for these unique and limited products to be released on dakotastones.com.

Chrome Diopside

Pilbara Jasper

In our next report I will discuss why you may want to consider a price increase in your stone jewelry line. To be continued....